When a cellular system client device (hereafter, a user device) is within operational range of a base station of a wireless network, and is provided access to the network by the base station via a radio link, the ability of the radio link to provide satisfactory service to the user of the user device is subject to many factors. Generally, when the user device is operating in lightly loaded conditions, that is when the amount of voice and data information being transferred between the base station and all of the user devices that are simultaneously linked to the base station is low compared to a designed maximum load (i.e., a designed maximum amount of data and voice information), then satisfactory or better than satisfactory service can typically be provided to the user device and most of the other user devices. Providing satisfactory or better than satisfactory service in lightly loaded cells is subject in large part to degraded performance at the user device when it operates in locations that are in weak signal areas such as near cell limits in cellular wireless networks. The weak signal effect can sometimes be offset in lightly loaded conditions by increasing the power of the transmitting devices (base station and user device) of the radio link and granting more bandwidth to the radio link. These offsetting actions are sometimes performed dynamically—that is, during a communication session of a user device.
The performance of user devices in a cell tends to degrade as the cell loading increases, but cell loading by itself is not necessarily correlated to performance of a user device in a cellular system. Degraded performance in packet radio systems (which are representative of newer cellular systems) is sometimes directly correlated to higher instances of high packet latencies and reduced average data rates (reduced throughput). Since voice is now transported over packetized cellular systems, latencies of greater than 150 milliseconds are often used as one measure of adequate performance.
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